Modern day aircrafts transmit and receive a relatively large amount of data. The data received by (or loaded on) the aircraft may include, for example, Electronic Flight Bag (EFB), In-flight Entertainment (IFE) data, cabin system updates, navigation database updates, flight release paperwork. The data transmitted from (or loaded off) an aircraft may include, for example, point-of-sale (POS) information, aircraft performance data, and Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA).
Current methods of exchanging the large amount of data while the aircraft is in the air are expensive. As an alternative, data may be exchanged while the aircraft is on the ground. While the aircraft is on the ground, terrestrial cellular systems and/or systems using Wi-Fi signals may be used for data transfer. However, terrestrial cellular systems have a relatively low data transfer rate, and, as a result, all data may not be transferred to and from the aircraft while the aircraft is on the ground between flights. Wi-Fi systems may have a relatively higher data transfer rate than the terrestrial cellular systems, but Wi-Fi systems may be expensive to use and bottlenecks may be present in the terrestrial network that connects to the Wi-Fi systems. These network bottlenecks may reduce the data transfer rate.
What is needed, then, are systems and methods for transferring data to and from the aircraft while the aircraft is on the ground.